


and the next chance

by rain_sleet_snow



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Battle Couple, Battle of Endor, Canon-Typical Violence, During Canon, Ewoks (Star Wars), F/M, Gen, Hope, the empire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24354631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Jyn and Cassian on Endor's moon, in and out of captivity.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso
Comments: 21
Kudos: 112





	and the next chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [brynnmclean (ilfirin_estel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilfirin_estel/gifts).



> At Brynn's request! This didn't come out quite as shippy as I wanted, but I think it has its own merits.

Objectively, the troopers don't have them on their knees awaiting execution for very long - but minutes feel like lifetimes when there's a gun at your head, and your last chance to end the second Death Star is slipping through your fingers.

Jyn's hands on the nape of her neck feel cold and clammy, her palms sweaty, her heart racing. Glancing up through her lashes she can see the troopers standing around, relaxed, confident. They knew this was coming. They _knew_. How? Cassian vetted the intel himself; Jyn knows it was good.

Next to her, Cassian is still as death. If she couldn't hear the faint harsh rhythm of his breathing, if he weren’t upright, she'd think he really was dead. Her knees press into the cold loam, decaying leaves sticking to her trousers, and thinks about dying here, thinks about Solo and Organa trading grim glances as the troopers led them out of the bunker. There are famous faces here the Emperor would love to make an example of. Skywalker has taken off on some mission neither Jyn nor Cassian knows anything about, and he's Vader's favourite quarry, but the Emperor seeks out Leia Organa and she is right here under his hand. Jabba Desilijic Tiure is dead, the blood price on Han Solo's head paid, but Jyn's sure there's a high-profile firing squad for the Empire's most famous deserter. There’s even an old clonetrooper behind her who might take the prize for the Empire’s _second_ most famous deserter, in certain select circles. Jyn has little to do with the original Fulcrum, and her knowledge of the early days of the Rebellion is scanty, heavily angled by the scraps of information Saw let slip - but she knows who Captain Rex is, and how important he has been. Vader would burn a planet down just to get his hands on one old man currently tilting his face down to hide it and trusting to his beard to obscure his tell-tale features.

Less obscure members of the Imperial hierarchy might be equally pleased to get their hands on Jyn herself. Or Cassian. The Empire will conclude they have valuable information, and that wouldn't be untrue - so if they're recognised before they're gunned down, this situation could in fact get worse.

Behind her, Captain Rex mutters something unrepeatable and incredulous. Jyn’s grasp of Mando’a is largely limited to the swearwords, which is fine in this instance, because he uses a lot of them. She can’t figure out what he’s talking about, though, until she hears a familiar nervous, prissy voice:

  
  
“Hello! I say, over there! Were you looking for me?”

_What the fuck_ , Jyn thinks.

“Bring those two down here!” the bunker commander bawls, which tells Jyn that not merely is C-3P0 doing something weirder than usual, R2-D2 is with him, and something’s going to go bang quite soon. 

“We surrender!” pipes C-3P0, from somewhere behind a thick stand of trees. Cassian flicks a glance at Jyn.

There’s a lot of crashing and triumphant Ewok squeaking, and the distinctive sound of a stormtrooper screaming through his vocoder is abruptly cut off.

“ _Osik_ ,” Captain Rex mumbles, as several troopers - but not quite enough - rush off to deal with this new threat. 

“Didn’t you say they were cannibals?” Kes Dameron murmurs. He didn’t witness Solo and Skywalker’s narrow escape from a new and very short-lived career as Ewok dinner, and therefore has no idea how it all went down.

“No,” Jyn says, “pretty sure they only eat humans,” and then there’s the howl of a calling trumpet, and _all furry hell breaks loose_. 

Twenty Pathfinders (plus one guest from Intelligence) take this as the signal to do likewise.

Jyn bursts out of her prisoner’s crouch and breaks the neck of the guard in front of her. She rips the blaster from his hands and shoots his companion before the trooper can try to kill the Ewok that’s just wrecked his hamstrings, tosses the blaster to Cassian and takes possession of the second guard’s weapons. 

There’s still time, she thinks, risking a glance up into the powder-blue sky; from down here the battleships look little bigger than dots, the half-completed skeleton of the Death Star little more than a toy. She could snatch it from the sky with a single hand.

They’re not finished yet.

Cassian has stolen a rifle and climbed a tree to snipe. Jyn picks off a trooper who’s spotted his nest and aimed to fire at him, and smashes the butt of her blaster into the back of a second trooper’s head, shooting to stun when he’s down. The trooper has some rank, and unless R2-D2 gets luckier with that blast door than he seems to be managing right now, they’re going to need another way into the bunker. Hopefully the Ewoks won’t eat him before they can figure out how to get inside.

Cassian half-climbs, half-slithers out of the tree - it’s useless to him now he’s been spotted - and Jyn runs to him, pulls him into cover and drags him down behind the bulk of a ruined speeder bike. 

“What now?” she says. Most of the strike team is scattered away from the vulnerable open area before the bunker, and Solo and Organa are crouched in what cover the doorway offers, trying to get the blast doors open. Jyn has a backpack full of blaster charges that will do no good out here, but will really ruin the Emperor’s day if she places them in the right spots inside the bunker. 

Cassian’s breathing is quick where her arm is pressed up against his ribs, his eyes sharp.

“Maintenance hatch,” he says. “Round the back. Come on.” 

“Wait.” Jyn pushes him down a second, lifts her head just slightly to scan the area, and then braces herself to go. “Now.”

“Think I can’t take care of myself?” Cassian grouses. He’s got narrow lines between his eyes like he does when his back hurts, but he can’t do anything about it.

“Shut up.” Jyn shields him as they move. “We’ve been in this too long for you to die on me now, that’s all.”

He grabs her hand and squeezes tight as they slide behind the next piece of cover, and Jyn can’t help thinking of Scarif - the next chance and the next chance and the next. _Roll the dice, Erso_. Above them, the second Death Star looms, and the maintenance hatch comes into view as Cassian pulls vegetation away from it. Jyn crouches next to him, covering his back, her pack of charges between them.

The hatch comes open under Cassian’s hands just as Jyn sees the first red streaks of two fleets opening fire above Endor, and Cassian slips inside.

“Let’s go,” he says, holding out his hands for the backpack. Jyn passes it down and follows it.

From darkness into light, she thinks. One way or another, this will all be over by sundown. 


End file.
